William Swinimer, 19, poses for a photo at Fox Point Beach near his Nova Scotia home on Thursday, May 3, 2012. Swinimer was suspended Forest Heights Community School in Chester Basin for wearing a T-shirt that says Life is Wasted Without Jesus.

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Canada, we like to believe, is among the freest societies on Earth. It would offend many of us greatly to think that, for example, we are a bunch of whinny-babies who go snivelling off to mama — or the societal equivalents, a human-rights court, or the court of public opinion — whenever we hear or read something that bruises our feelings.

Facebook, God knows (I invoke His name intending no offence, overt or implied, to secular humanists, agnostics, atheists, Unitarians, communists, or believers who take His or Its name to be Allah, Yahweh, Atman, Odin, Zeus, Wicca, Manitou, the Tao or the Force) is an incubator for ideas of every kind, some outrageous and offensive, if not repulsive. On Twitter, otherwise respectable Canadians, including members of Parliament, curse like sailors and trash-talk each other in the basest of terms.

So how can it be that, in 2012, a 19-year-old high-school student from Nova Scotia was suspended from school, for wearing a “Life is wasted without Jesus” T-shirt, on grounds this was offensive? And how can it be that on the opposite coast Wally Oppal, whose life has recently been given over to heading the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry in Vancouver, has been called out for taking a bit part in a movie, produced by a friend, because some don’t like the storyline?

Google the young man, his name is William Swinimer. He appears just as you would expect him to: Clean-cut, fresh-faced, the kind of teenager every mother dreams she’ll have. He may as well have the words future solid citizen tattooed on his forehead. As young Swinimer himself pointed out last week: Kids at his school can sport Satanic motifs, a hip part of popular culture, without apparent difficulty. The Twilight books, which glorify vampirism? No doubt that’s OK. But an overt expression of Christianity? Tut, tut.

The reason for the fuss, ostensibly, was that another student or students complained. They took the T-shirt to mean “Your life is wasted without Jesus.” This was deemed judgmental. Local administrators then handed the matter to a “human rights expert,” who was to determine if the T-shirt could indeed have been offensive. Then, in the face of growing public criticism, the South Shore Regional School Board in Nova Scotia backed off. Young Swinimer is expected to return to school Monday, sporting his Jesus T-shirt. Hats off to him.

Here’s how the fuss might have been avoided: They could have told the kids who complained to stop being so damned sensitive.

Ah, I hear you say: What about enforcing secularity in education? Well, yes, public education must be secular. But it must also be respectful of individual freedoms. This was not about religious instruction, or the mass distribution of bibles, or allowances made for formal prayer. This was a T-shirt. What’s the next battleground — the ornamental crucifix? And if we go there, then mustn’t we also single out Islamic head scarves, and traditional Mennonite clothing as well? What about the Yarmulke? Perhaps while we’re at it we could reopen the 25-year-old debate about turbans in the RCMP.

In a free country, in which certain rights are inalienable, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech and protection from discrimination, it follows that these rights must be applied with common sense — or they will often be in conflict. Where did common sense disappear to, albeit temporarily, in the Swinimer case? And where did it go in the case of Oppal, criticized for taking a tiny part in a film, on his day off, because its plot features, gasp, murder?

Oppal’s critics have apparently forgotten that murder is a recurring theme in fiction, TV and film. Shakespeare even wrote about it sometimes. The critics are reported to be members of the families of victims of serial killer Robert Pickton. All reasonable people empathize with their pain. But being a victim does not give a private citizen the right to dictate the private habits of public officials. Or at least, it shouldn’t. Should it?

It was just two years ago that right-wing commentator Ann Coulter was hounded out of Canada, virtually, by ideological thugs at the University of Ottawa. Partly in response to that shameful episode, a movement emerged to have Section 13 of Canada’s Human Rights Act — a censorship provision — repealed. Conservative backbench MP Brian Storseth has a private member’s bill before the House of Commons now to effect this, and the Harper government is supporting him. His chances of success are good.

But none of that, worthy though it may be, means much of anything, unless there is a collective sanity — call it common sense, fairness, good old Canadian reasonableness — underlying the administration of such questions. Simply put, there are too many of us in this country, from too many different places, comprising too many different belief systems, to get our knickers in a twist over how people dress, or their choice of hobby, or their preference in films. Live and let live.

We’ve had the Charter of Rights for 30 years. Shouldn’t that much be obvious by now?

mdentandt(at)postmedia.com

Twitter.com/mdentandt

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